


All They're Worth

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [27]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen, Snakes N' Barrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:13:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1898568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>August, 1989.  Breaking up is hard to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All They're Worth

_July 30, 1989. Los Angeles, California._

**Snakes N' Barrels Slips Lower in Their Game of Snakes & Ladders!**

Superstar glam rock band Snakes N' Barrels let down nearly a million fans last Saturday night when the band showed up over three hours late for their Double Cross Tour finale in Baltimore. The crowd may have been more forgiving if inclement weather or a traffic accident had been the cause of the delay, but it appears that that was not the case; as frontman Pickles took the stage, he let the crowd know just what happened! The band allegedly lost rhythm guitarist, Snizzy-Snazz Bullets, only to later find him passed out in the luggage compartment of the band's tour bus. Talk about "falling asleep on the job"!

After such a delay, you'd expect a band to make it up to the tired and irritated crowd, but not this group of rockers. Reports from the show state that the set list was less than half of what they played throughout previous tour dates, and fans complained later of the band's lackluster, half-hearted playing. Demands of ticket refunds have been presented to band manager Peter Whittaker, who submitted the following statement...

 

Ash fell from the end of Pickles' cigarette and landed messily on the newspaper spread out over the bedspread. He wasn't sure why he was reading this shit, except that the newspaper had come to their mailbox like usual and he brought it in and read it like usual. The content didn't really matter-- he was going to read whatever it was. This time, it just happened to be about his band.

He'd been reading a lot of shit about his band lately, come to think of it. But at least it gave him something to do while he waited for Tony to snap out of his stupor.

\---  
 _August 18, 1989. Los Angeles, California._

Tony cracked open another bottle, chugged half of it before setting it on his amp. He was plastered, could hardly see straight, but it wasn't a problem, wasn't anything new. Pickles lit a cigarette, still plenty lit from the pills he'd popped before rehearsal, and picked away at a careless melody across his strings. 

"You guys ready yet?" Pickles rounded on his bandmates, just in time to watch Sammy take a bump from the edge of his drumstick and wash it down with one of his shitty wine cooler drinks.

"Chill out, man," Tony slurred. "We got all night."

"Not by the looks of all'a you," Pickles muttered, irritated. He'd been speaking his mind a little more lately, just a little. He used to hold back for the sake of band unity or whatever crap like that, but who the fuck cared anymore? The guys never brought it up again while sober. When it mattered. Come to think of it, when was the last time Pickles had seen any of these guys sober?

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sammy asked.

"Nothin', just, you know, it's good to have fun an' all, but don't forget about the music," Pickles said, taking a drag of his cigarette to avoid looking any of them in the eye.

"That's why we're rehearsing!" Sammy insisted. 

"Yeah, an' you guys probably ain't even gonna remember it tomorrow," Pickles said, scowling.

"Why the hell are you getting so self-righteous?"

"Bullets is right- you need to chill out," Tony said, glaring at him, but Pickles could tell Tony's pupils could hardly focus on him. "You do the same shit as us- don't try to act like you're better all of a sudden." 

"Got some good stuff that'll calm you down, Pickles," Bullets offered.

Pickles ground his teeth and slammed out a chord. 

"Let's just fuckin' play," he growled.

The drugs and shit weren't an issue- Pickles did them just the same as the other guys, and he wasn't planning on stopping- but if the music sucked, what was the fucking point of all this?

\---  
 _September 27, 1989. Tucson, Arizona._

It all seemed too fuckin' surreal.

Pickles had never had to call 911 before, and looking back that seemed really surprising, with all the shit they'd pulled; somehow doing acid on the rooftop of a twelve story apartment building or charging down the beach in the black of night on four wheelers with more liquor in their veins than blood hadn't yet warranted any such calls. What the hell had happened this time? Pickles still wasn't sure. He'd gotten out of the shower only to find Tony slumped over the hotel bed, and it wasn't like normal when he shot up and shit, it was different. Something was different. Pickles didn't get it, but he knew it was bad.

He'd dialed the phone before he even thought to get the manager, then took a few shots in the span of time it took for paramedics or whatever to burst into the hotel room. When they did, he kind of just backed away, all the way over to the crummy little chair over by the window and he watched it all happening in front of him. 

Pickles had barely blinked and they were gone, manager and Tony and all.

\---

Later, the call from Whittaker knocked him back to his senses. 

"What the hell is goin' on?!" Pickles snapped into the receiver, the second he heard that asshole's voice. He didn't trust that guy with Tony's life.

"Antonio's having his stomach pumped," Whittaker told him. 

"What the hell? Why?!" Pickles was angry, and even though some part of his rational self knew it wasn't Whittaker's fault, he still wanted to foist off the blame on that guy.

But Whittaker just sighed at him. 

"Well?"

"Do I even need to answer that?" Whittaker finally asked. And Pickles supposed he didn't. 

"Is he gonna be, you know, alright...?" Pickles asked in a smaller voice. It didn't make sense for him _not_ to be. That was Tony-- the four of them were invincible!

"Sounds like it, but he's not doing great right now. Come to the hospital. Sammy and Bullets are already here, wondering where the hell you are."

Those guys went without him? What the hell? Nothing was making sense today. Pickles swallowed hard.

"I'll get a cab, I guess."

\---

He ran his hand through knotted hair as he waltzed through the hotel lobby, confused and for the first time in a long while, alone. 

"Where you headed?" the cabbie asked.

"Hospital," Pickles muttered, fishing in his pockets for a cigarette.

"Hey, no smoking in here. Says it on the door. Now which hospital?"

Pickles had no idea where they took Tony. 

"Closest one, I guess," Pickles decided with a shrug, stuffing the crushed pack of cigarettes back into his jeans. The cabbie was looking skeptically at him in his rear view mirror. 

"You got money, right?" 

Pickles grit his teeth, though if he was honest with himself, he'd probably admit that he looked a bit haggard. "Don't you know who I am? I'm _Pickles_." Idiot.

"Never heard'a you," the cabbie grunted, starting the car.

"From _Snakes N' Barrels._ I'm a famous musician?"

"Everyone thinks they can be a rockstar in this day and age, kid. You look just like everyone else. Can't tell any of you long-haired guys apart."

Pickles spent the ride in silence, brooding. For a while, he almost believed the guy-- he was a nobody, he looked just like everyone else, he wasn't that important, not really. But when the cab stopped in front of the hospital, there was paparazzi and media and shit everywhere.

Pickles forked over a wad of cash to the guy without counting it and stepped out of the car, wanting to get this over with.

A lady ran up to him, shoving a microphone toward his face, and Pickles' scowl deepened. 

"Pickles! Is it true that Antonio Thunderbottom is in this hospital?"

"Pickles," called a man's voice, "What do you have to say about Antonio's overdose?"

"Pickles, a quick interview please!"

Pickles raised a hand to block the cameras. "I don't consent to any of these pictures and if any'a you assholes publish 'em, my manager's gonna see your ass in court. Now get the fuck out of my way."

He stomped into the building and found Whittaker in the main lobby. 

"Where have you been?" Whittaker asked sharply. 

"It's a madhouse outside if you ain't noticed," Pickles grumbled, his mood adequately sullied. "Just take me to him, dude."

He led Pickles up an elevator and down a hallway and then down another hallways and Pickles was sick of walking all this way when they finally got to a waiting room. Sammy was slumped in a seat, one knee bobbing to a rhythm only he heard as he played with the ends of his hair. Bullets was standing, hands in his pockets, and he rounded on Pickles as soon as he was within ten feet of him.

"Where the fuck have you been, man?"

Pickles shrugged, still itching for a cigarette. "How's he doin'?"

"Not good," Sammy said quietly.

"How could you let this happen?" Bullets snarled.

Pickles blinked, taken aback. "Me?"

"You were sharing a room with him," Bullets accused. 

"What the hell's that gotta do with anything? Not like he asks my permission before he gets fucked up!"

"You're the one who lives with him, too. You let shit get this bad-- why the hell didn't you stop him?"

"Bullets, quit it," Sammy started, looking strung out, but both of them ignored him.

"I ain't his mom, Bullets. The hell do you expect from me?" Pickles demanded.

"I expect you guys to look out for each other!" Bullets roared.

"You want me to look after you, then, too?" Pickles spat back. "How 'bout you stop fuckin' shooting up, then? Huh?"

"Pickles," Sammy hedged, getting to his feet.

"No, Sammy. I been tryin'a tell you guys this shit for months. We gotta think about the music, but you guys are all too fuckin' busy shoving shit up your nose, shovin' shit in your veins."

"Like you're any different!" Sammy protested, and that was kind of the final straw, because if Sammy was turning on him, too, Pickles couldn't really take it.

"No, I aint. But at least I can make it through a fuckin' rehearsal, unlike the rest of you," Pickles accused them. But it wasn't just them. It was also Tony. It was... mostly Tony.

"Guys," Whittaker interrupted. "What are you going to do about tonight?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about, _tonight_?" Pickles snarled, rounding on their manager. 

"Your show...?" Whittaker said. "You know, the whole reason you're even _in_ Tucson to begin with?"

"Fuck it," Pickles said. "Fuck you, and fuck this band. We're over." He stormed off down the corridor, just wanting to go see Tony, but without any clue where to find him.

\---  
 _September 29, 1989. Los Angeles, California._

Pickles turned the key and shoved open the door, looking over the empty bed and feeling a pang of guilt. He'd gotten the first flight he could out of Tucson without a word to his bandmates, leaving a billion fans high and dry for tour dates that had been sold out for months. He didn't give a shit. This was the end. Neither Bullets nor Sammy had argued, but then again, Pickles hadn't let them.

Tony was still in the hospital when he left. Pickles never even got to talk to him, to make sure he was doing okay. To tell him with his own tongue what Pickles had said, about their band being dead. How could he say all that to Tony, Tony who'd been looking out for him since he showed up in LA in the first place with little more than his guitar and the clothes on his back?

And maybe Bullets was right. How _could_ he have let that happen to Tony?

With a sigh deep from the pit of his chest, Pickles rolled onto the mattress, grabbed the bottle of tequila left on the nightstand, and guzzled it messily.

An hour later when the pain in his head and his heart had been suitably numbed, he groped for the telephone, the twisting cord knocking a shot glass off the table as, with seemingly great effort, he pulled it to his cheek. The rotary dialer was a whole separate beast to face.

As he counted the ringtones in his ear, he worked on steadying his breathing, realising only in that moment that his face was wet with tears.

"Hello?" finally answered the voice in his ear.

"Donny," Pickles murmured. "S'me."

"Pickles? What's going on?"

"I quit," Pickles sighed.

"Quit what? What's going on, kid?" Donny asked, and he sounded tired. Pickles wondered vaguely what he was interrupting, but he couldn't help putting his own needs first.

"The band. Everything. It's over, dude."

"Wait, Snakes N' Barrels?" Donny asked. "What happened, kid?"

"I don't know," Pickles admitted. After a pause, he murmured, "Can I come home?"

\---

_October 12th, 1989. Los Angeles._

The four of them sat at a long table, none of them looking at one another. Whittaker was talking, but Pickles could barely hear him over the static in his ears. The rest of them were sober, he thought. Not him. He was hardly conscious.

Eyes turned on him for a comment, and it was the moment he was dreading. But he was the band's frontman and it was his responsibility to deliver, whether he wanted it or not. 

At the end of it all, Pickles wasn't even sure what he said. It was bullshit and he knew it, and he could feel his bandmates' eyes on his back as he stood even though they wouldn't look at him at all prior to that. 

"Happy fuckin' birthday to me," he heard Tony mutter under his breath. Pickles tried not to pay him any mind, but how could he ignore it?

But hey, that was his job. To deliver the bullshit. It was part of the responsibility of being the frontman, right? Couldn't always be about coming up with lyrics and strumming his guitar. He obviously couldn't make it about delivering good music anymore. Apparently that wasn't enough.

"We're leaving you with the end of an era," Pickles said finally. "Snakes N' Barrels may be over, but hey, I'm sure the next best thing is just on the horizon."

He was lying through his teeth. Maybe the audience already knew that, though, because nothing could be better than or even as good as Snakes N' Barrels. But they were just _over_ and supposedly it was Pickles' own fault. Even so, Pickles just wanted to get the hell out of here, get high out of his mind.

Apparently, that was all any of them were good for.

Pickles thought they had made pretty good music, though. Once. And he thought that more than that...

They'd maybe been... family.

\---

_October 24, 1989. Cleveland, Ohio._

Pickles pulled out the cigarette he had tucked behind his ear and scrounged around for a lighter as his fingers groped for the lighter that was laying somewhere next to him on the couch. His eyes were glued to the front page of the paper spread in front of him on the coffee table. 

Not a mention of his band on the front page. The media had already moved on, found someone more interesting to criticise, some actor getting arrested for some stupid shit. Pickles didn't care.

There was a small article tucked away in a corner of an unremarkable page.

_Although Snakes N' Barrels was once the name on the tips of every tongue, the band's sudden mid-tour dissolution has left little real mark on the industry. Fan approval ratings had been plummeting in the months leading up to the announcement of the break-up. The band had canceled multiple tour dates, renegged on contracts, and..._

Pickles closed the newspaper and sat back. He picked up his drink and took a long swig of it, followed by a deep drag of his cigarette.

He was more than ready for the newspapers to be totally clear of his and his band's names, he realised.


End file.
